Personally, I love his use of colour and vibrancy. I love the way his pieces are usually full of life and happiness. I've taken inspiration from his work, as his proportions, use of colour and ability to convey emotion are not only what I want to convey in my project, but also skills I would like to take forward for my own personal art.

Saville is known for her large scale depictions and representations of nude women and close up images of faces. Some of her large oil paintings represent bruised, overweight nude women, showing the constant struggle between the true female body and socital norms.

Saville’s work is vastly different from traditional paintings of women, whereas she embraces natural, unultered female bodies.

She details bumps, curves, contours, dimples and rolls, representing common insecurities and imperfections.

Her paintings surround the female form, using oil paint to create a meaningful, vibrant image.

She’s worked with models who have had plastic surgery to reshape and form their bodies - her paintings aim to inspire and encourage the women to embrace themselves and their bodies.

In some depictions of her art, she has created paintings of bruises, deformities and burns.

I love the work of Jenny Saville and her use of paint. The way she achieves skin tones, harsher strokes, highlights and shadows is something I would really like to learn and develop into my own style project. I find her work to be very engaging in a disturbing way. She aims to convey the feeling of discomfort, which I understand. I like her use of oil paint and the finish it leaves.

After cutting the images out, I also cut out facial features on some other pictures and glued them together to make another face. I then added lines in permanent marker, as if they are indicators for a surgeon.

I chose this route because it’s similar to when people get plastic surgery, they are looking for a few feature, such as a rhinoplasty - changing the shape of your nose.

I really like the outcome of this and how it’s quite busy and cluttered. With some of the new faces looking quite scary and unsettling, it almost comes across as an awareness poster.

Androgyny is when a person has both male and female characteristics, such as a broader nose and thicker eyebrows, which are commonly more masculine, or a slimmer face and fuller lips, which are commonly more feminine.

Androgyny is something I noticed a lot in modelling, and I wanted to experiment with the idea of using it for a piece. I sketched a person with androgynous features, and I really like the outcome.

After a peer suggestion, I decided to research and sketch some well known, ancient work from artists such as Michelangelo.

I’m very happy with the outcome of the two bodies at the top. I think I captured shading, anatomy and composition quite well.

The body used as reference was model Adriana Lima in the 2000s, modelling for Victoria’s Secret.

I chose a pink theme, as the common colours used for Victorias Secret are hot pink and a lighter pink striped pattern.

The composition for this piece was intended to be two women of similar ages looking at each other - one young looking with plastic surgery and cosmetics done, the other with an natural, unaltered face.

I found my issue with the paint was my patience. I didn’t think to paint layer by layer, but more blocking colours in and blending from there.

I found when using them, there isn’t too many transitional shades between colours, meaning the style would have to be quite abstract and unblended.

I decided not to take alcohol markers forward and try another material, as the effect it left wasn’t for me.

The image at the top of the page is supermodel Kate Moss, coloured with alcohol markers. Although I didn’t like the effect it gave on the other page, I found the pens worked and blended better.

The image at the bottom was coloured with watered down acrylic paint, like watercolour. I really like the effect it gave and is one of my favourite portraits done. I think I captured shadows and highlights well.

I chose to paint with a single colour, as when I tested acrylic paint I found blending colours to be a problem for me, so painting with one colour made it easier for me to work with and left the colours less muddy.

This piece helped me work more on my composition and facial anatomy.

After drawing portraits without hair, as I wanted to focus more on faces, I chose to paint hair styles with different texture and styles.

Overall, I like these pieces a lot and the hair has helped form ideas further into my project.

The first picture is a sculpture of the Venus of Willendorf, an approximately 30,000 year old statue - thought to be to be the first ever known depiction of a woman.

The second image is from a magazine of Kate Moss, 20 years ago. I chose this picture of her, as it’s notable how skinny she is. I thought an image of her in a bikini would convey what I wanted, showing her very slim figure and how her body became a want in society and symbol of beauty.

The last picture is of model Adriana Lima, who was very famous in the 2000s for working with Victoria’s Secret. In 2023, when she was pregnant, she was ridiculed on the internet for gaining weight in her face and body. However, in 2025, she began going to the gym and made it back to the Victoria’s Secret stage as a model.

I chose to use this model, as it shows the progression and digression of the modelling world and how she was bullied into returning to how she did as a model, after pregnancy.

I looked online at reference pictures for the surgery marker lines to make it more realistic.

I had no reference image for this piece but I think my proportions and shadows have worked.

To make this, I photocopied some of my previous portraits, cut out the features and glued them together to create a new person. I chose to use a different person’s feature for each space to be filled, for example, two different eyes and eyebrows.

For around the edges, I glued down the remaining cut outs and used a red pencil to create thread. I used red as it represents blood and it’s known to be a colour of danger and warning.

I like to think about it more meaningfully, this Frankenstein-like woman has the lips and eye of Kate Moss, hair, eye and eyebrow of an androgynous model and yet still getting plastic surgery.

Something about this piece that I like is the doodles of the needle thread and surgery equipment around the collage.

The outcome left me with something that looked like a mask. I thought this dark, scary drawing would make for a good unsettling piece which has a deeper meaning of plastic surgery being seen as a mask.

I used watered down acrylic to create a dark ambiance and shadows, showing it’s a cut out face.

I really like this piece and how it’s unsettling and comes off as more of an awareness poster to what plastic surgery is.

I find this one to be the less scary one of the two, however, I prefer the messiness of the background of this one and how it seems harsher as spreading awareness on plastic surgery.

After a conversation with a peer, I was recommended the composition similar to ‘The evolution of man’ which would be a series of drawings from the 1800s to the 2020s.

I really like the outcome of this piece. All of the drawings have a stylistic yet realistic design and represent the eras quite well.

These drawings where created with loose referencing. I like the way they are styalised and have an unique sense of unrealism while still being realistic.

The woman on the top left is a famous model named Twiggy, from the 1960s. She was known for being very thin and that’s what gave her the nickname. She also had some androgynous features, like shorter hair and thinner lips.

The woman on the bottom left is the very famous Marilyn Monroe. I chose that photo of her, as she’s corrected her posture to make her better, slimming her waist and arching her back slightly.

The picture on the far right is a woman from the 1800s wearing an incredibly small corset. I chose this image as it showed off what was then a beauty standard, which has stayed throughout time, however, not so extreme.

The two other pictures are portraits of women from the 1800s, one a painting and one a picture. I chose these as you can tell, by their features, that they are from a certain era.

After a peer review, I was given the concept of Charles Darwin’s ‘The Evolution of Man’ which is a series of images of the evolution of ape to human.

I wanted to start with the Venus of Willendorf, the first depiction of a woman, then move onto a woman from the 1800s, 90s, 60s, 2000s and for the 2020s, either a plus sized woman or a woman with extreme plastic surgery.

However, I found it would be too difficult to draw a portrait of a plus sized woman and decided to take forward the other option.

I went on google for references of women from the 1800s and 1900s, but slightly tweaked them into something more my style.

However, I decided I wasn’t too keen on this idea and chose to move on with my planning.

I think this idea could have been a good fit for my project, but I personally didn’t think it was something I was interested in taking forward.

I also wasn’t sure, at this point, whether to do a woman with extreme plastic surgery or a plus sized woman. I chose to leave the space blank until deciding.

Once again, I wasn’t confident enough in this idea to take it forward.

Something I struggled with with this sketch is accurately drawing a real person from a reference. I am better, when drawing portraiture, to draw my own conclusions and ideas than using a reference, as I tend to overthink proportions.

Initially, when looking at all of the cards next to each other, I felt slightly overwhelmed by the amount and felt it was too much.

I then looked at the order of the Greek statue, 1960s and 2020s as a large gap comparison.

I also looked at just the 1960s, 2000s and 2020s, which I thought showed the change in beauty standards well. However, didn’t feel historic enough to be considered ‘revolution’.

Like the original, I decided to add small drawings of features, surgery equipment and thread around the image, as something I’ve learnt is that I prefer to doodle rather than produce a piece.

This plan helped me narrow down a direction to take my project in a way that I would enjoy producing.

The other two images where drawings I had the same problem with. I didn’t like the way they where going and turned them into something I’d actually enjoy drawing.

I’ve learnt that my style of art is I prefer to doodle instead of sticking to a brief.

The reason I don’t like these sketches is because they where all drawn using references, except for the top left one.

The one on the top left is faint, as it had been rubbed out in preparation for painting, however, I never got around to doing it. It’s my favourite of the six pictures here, which I think comes down to the fact I didn’t use a reference.

3 of the images are Marilyn Monroe. I quickly learnt that I find drawing from reference difficult, and chose not to in future.

I wanted to correct my issues with lighting, so an apple seemed like a perfect example for me. I think I’ve captured light well, however, my shadows could be darker in certain areas.

The face at the top was drawn at a small scale, which I thought I would have found easier, which I did. With more time, I think it could have been developed better and the lighting could have been more accurate. However, considering my previous experience with acrylic, I’m happy with these outcomes and proud of my progress.

The drawing on the left has proportions that could be improved, however I didn’t realise that until stepping back to look at the drawing properly. I really like the effect the right eye has, and the way the hair has depth and highlights.

The middle picture worked well. It’s my favourite of the three and I think the colours well match to the 2020s, orange fake tan look I’ve tried to achieve.

The last image was an attempt at a woman from the 1950-60s. I like the way the eyes have turned out, however in my eyes, her proportions and highlights on the face didn’t look right, and I decided to move on. I also didn’t have a good skin colour that wasn’t so orange. I think the orange hue took away from the 50s effect.

I enjoyed using coloured pencils, as I felt more in control than using thick acrylic paint. I was able to blend the pencils somewhat well and create depth in the face, which I found helpful to my experimentation.

I like the outcome of these drawings. I felt as if the painted piece looked more gothic and similar to that of Tim Burton’s work. A problem I encountered with this pencil drawing is the proportions, specifically with her arms. Although they don’t look too similar to the reference picture, I feel as if I made the arm’s proportions and angle work.

I think it’s interesting to see the way beauty extremities have adapted. The idea of a small waist and wide hips has been a standard for centuries, which is contrary to things like the Venus of Willendorf.

The woman in the reference image looks uncomfortable and in pain, however it’s something she would have continued to do to herself in order to keep up with dangerous beauty standards.

I was given a peer suggestion from another student to add text around the image. I then thought of adding terms for plastic surgery, such as lip filler and cheekbone implants.

I used illustrator and type tool to test this. I chose a font similar to a type writer, to add to t medical aspect of this outcome. I also chose to colour them red, as the line painted around the image are in red, symbolising blood, warning and danger, adding more of an awareness effect to the scene.

With my tutor, we put my work on the wall, stood back and looked over it for a while. When stepping back, I noticed some mistakes I had made, such as the unfinished lines next to the pink mask and the missing arrow on the lips at the top.

At this point in my project, if I could have changed anything, I would have changed the background. I feel as though it looks too harsh on the eyes to have a white background, however, if I had chose a colour like black, I don’t think the lines would have shown up well. Contrary to that, I think a dark background would have added to the unease of the masks.

Although the mistakes are noticeable on the piece, I think they add to the overall design.

With the very medical aspect of this piece, I chose a type writer looking font and I find the smudges add to the design, looking like a rushed medical document.

In conclusion for my mistakes, I’m happy with the way it turned out and think it looks intentionally made.

Although it was quite a struggle to get here, I think the process led me to learning a lot and producing a great outcome in the end.